About This Demo

What's in the demo

• A complete run on Easy: floors 1 to 25, with six floor bosses on the way (about 45 minutes)
  
• 5 starting units, plus 4 heroes you build by combining classes (Randy, Grom, Kelly and Dike)
  
• 58 augments. You pick one of three every time you beat a floor boss
  
• 5 special balls, 23 items, the shop, soul upgrades and the squad tech tree
  
• A tutorial floor if it's your first time
  
• 20 languages

Added in the full game

• Normal difficulty, which carries on from floor 26 to 50
  
• More units and heroes
  
• 98 more augments, with 10 new lines such as Mana and Plinko
  
• Steam achievements

Demo progress does not carry over to the full game.

A game about dropping balls and getting an army

Plinko Squad is a roguelite auto battler. You drop balls down a plinko board to get units, put them on a hex grid, and they do the fighting themselves. Keep that up for 25 floors of a tower and the run is yours.

The plinko board

Every slot at the bottom of the board holds a unit, and whichever slot your ball lands in, that unit joins you. You don't have to watch them fall one at a time. Mash the button and a whole handful comes down at once. You get a few balls for every floor you clear and can buy more at the shop, and the ones you don't use carry over. Spend them now or save up for later? You'll be asking that on every floor.

The shop also sells special balls. A Twin Ball gives you a second copy of the unit. A Joker Ball raises its level by 2, or lowers it by 1.

Formation and merging

You drag your units onto the hex grid yourself. This floor's enemies are already standing on the other side, so you can set up against what you see. Drop a unit onto an identical one of the same level and it goes up a level. Gather the right classes and you can build a hero: two warriors and a rogue at the right levels make Randy.

The tower

A floor goes shop, plinko, battle, payout. After each one you choose your next opponent from a few groups, and you get to see their lineup first, so pick the one your formation can handle. Every fourth floor has a floor boss in the way. Goblins hold the lower floors and magic golems hold the ones above.

Augments

Beat a floor boss and you pick one of three augments. Angler drags in the two enemies with the lowest health the moment battle starts and finishes them off. Solemn Vow seals every active skill in exchange for a big jump in stats.

On its own an augment is a nice bonus. A few that work together change the whole run. Insurance Payout gives you gold whenever an ally dies. Death's Echo makes on-death effects go off a second time. Take both and the insurance pays out twice. The ally still only dies once.

Dead units stay dead

A unit that falls in battle is gone for the rest of the run, even if you won the fight. Lose the bowman you raised to level 8 and you climb the next floor without it. There is no player health bar. When the whole squad is down, the run ends on that floor.

Features

• A plinko board you can mash for multi-ball drops
  
• Auto battles on a hex grid with five classes: warrior, archer, rogue, mage and priest
  
• Merge identical units to level them up, and combine classes into heroes
  
• A pick of three augments after every floor boss
  
• A shop, soul upgrades and a squad tech tree
  
• Permadeath. Lose the whole squad and the run is over

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Character art, UI graphics and icons were created with generative AI image tools, and background music with generative AI music tools; both were then selected and edited by the developer. Some in-game text, translations and store page text were drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the developer. Nothing is generated by AI while you play.